Re:Gender works to end gender inequity by exposing root causes and advancing research-informed action. Working with multiple sectors and disciplines, we are shaping a world that demands fairness across difference.

Entrepreneurship & Small Business Development

New research indicates that women are leaving the corporate world at twice the rate of men. Many of these women are choosing to go into business for themselves. The Center for Women’s Business Research estimates that there are about 10.1 million privately-held women-owned firms in the United States, accounting for two out of every five businesses in the country. These firms generate $1.9 trillion in annual sales and employ 13 million people nationwide. In 1994, legislation was passed requiring the federal government to award a minimum of 5 percent of its contracts to women-owned businesses, a target that has never been met. There are currently no incentives, government departments or agencies tasked with enforcement and no consequences for failing to meet designated targets. Researchers in our network are working to improve guidelines and compliance to benefit women-run businesses.

W‐Biz Insight panelists participated in a very short survey this September 2011. They shared about their networking and social media usage. About one‐fourth of panelists reported that they attend a networking event at least once a week, while about one‐third attend an event one to three times a month. About 15% of panelists rarely or never attend networking events.

Seventy‐eight percent of all survey respondents use social media for their businesses, and 55.3% use social media at least once a week. The type of social media used most frequently is LinkedIn at 88.0%. This is followed closely by Facebook (75.2%), Twitter (59.0%), and a blog (44.4%). Among those women business owners who use social media at least once a week, 89.2% use LinkedIn, 83.1% use Facebook, and 71.1% use Twitter.

Women 2.0, an organization whose goal is to increase the number of female founders in technology startups, announced that the number of women starting companies has doubled over the past three years. The new data comes from a survey of its own community, which includes everyone from actual founders and co-founders to aspiring entrepreneurs.

Women 2.0, an organization whose goal is to increase the number of female founders in technology startups, is sharing some good news today: the number of women starting companies has doubled over the past three years. The new data comes from a survey of its own community, which includes everyone from actual founders and co-founders to aspiring entrepreneurs.

Back in 2008, Women 2.0 ran the same audience survey and found that 25% of its community were women founders. Today, more than 50% of its audience can now say the same.

Granted, only polling the audience of a women-focused technology community isn’t going to give you the same hard data as you would find if you took a broad sampling of the startup community as a whole and looked for changes over time. However, it likely does indicate that many of those 2008 respondents who claimed to be “thinking about entrepreneurship” actually followed through and launched their own companies. And that, in and of itself, should serve as solid inspiration for women entrepreneurs.

Another change from the previous survey to today’s is the location of the Women 2.0 audience. In 2008, nearly 100% of the community was based in the San Francisco Bay area. Now, the Bay Area accounts for 46%, while New York is 7% and the remaining members (which includes international members) accounts for 47% of the audience.

Women 2.0 says it has grown over the years as its audience matured. Three years ago, 85% of the community was only interested in events. Now, 25% are interested in events and the rest are interested in education around entrepreneurship and access to funding.

The organization also announced that the Kauffman Foundation is providing Women 2.0 with a second round of corporate sponsorship.. The corporate sponsorship will help Women 2.0 expand its educational resources via its online site and its global networking events like Founder Friday.

The European Parliament adopted a resolution on women entrepreneurship in small and medium-sized enterprises. The resolution states that there are discrepancies between Member States in the numbers of women entrepreneurs despite the upturn in the last decade in the numbers of women running SMEs, in the European Union only 1 in 10 women are entrepreneurs as opposed to 1 in 4 men. Women make up around 60% of all university graduates, but are underrepresented in full-time work in the labour market, particularly in the field of business. They are active in a wide range of sectors and businesses but do not have the same opportunities as to run and develop companies due to gender stereotyping and structural barriers.

Editorial:

The European Parliament adopted a resolution on women entrepreneurship in small and medium-sized enterprises.

The resolution states that there are discrepancies between Member States in the numbers of women entrepreneurs despite the upturn in the last decade in the numbers of women running SMEs, in the European Union only 1 in 10 women are entrepreneurs as opposed to 1 in 4 men. Women make up around 60% of all university graduates, but are underrepresented in full-time work in the labour market, particularly in the field of business. They are active in a wide range of sectors and businesses but do not have the same opportunities as to run and develop companies due to gender stereotyping and structural barriers.

In this context, Parliament makes the following recommendations:

Access to financial and educational support: firstly, Parliament encourage the Commission, Member States and regional and local authorities to make better use of the funding opportunities that are available to female entrepreneurs through special grants, venture capital, social security provisions and interest rate rebates that will allow fair and equal access to finance, such as the European Progress Microfinance Facility.

The following measures are laid down in the report which aim to:

set up nationwide campaigns, including workshops and seminars, to promote and inform women more effectively about the European Progress Microfinance Facility;

ensure that SMEs run (and set up) by women are also able to benefit from the tax advantages provided for SMEs;

implement Council Regulation (EC) No 1346/2000 on insolvency proceedings properly and to ensure that entrepreneurs who have become insolvent or have experienced career breaks have access to financial recovery assistance and support;

promote the exchange of best practice between regions ceasing to qualify for Objective 1 status and regions in countries which have just acceded so as to ensure the involvement of female entrepreneurs, particularly in the small-scale agriculture sector;

encourage banks and financial institutions to consider ‘women-friendly’ business support services;

consider the creation of mentoring schemes and support programmes making particular use of active ageing schemes that harness the advice and experience of retired male and female entrepreneurial professionals;

pay particular attention to the situation of women over the age of 50 and to help them set up their own companies;

embrace national educational concepts to raise girls’ awareness of entrepreneurship and women in management;

encourage one-year female entrepreneurship or apprenticeship programmes and exchanges at universities around Europe;

raise awareness of, and promote, the European entrepreneur exchange programme ‘Erasmus for young entrepreneurs’;

promote equal access to procurement contracts and make procurement policy within the public sector ‘gender-neutral’.

Access to traditional business networking opportunities and information and communication technologies(ICT): Parliament suggests the following measures which aim to:

encourage cross-border cooperation programmes aimed at setting up cross-border support centres for women entrepreneurs in order to provide a basis for exchanges of experience, rationalisation of resources, and the sharing of best practice;

harness information and communication technologies that can help to raise awareness and networking support for women;

encourage women's participation in local chambers of commerce, specific NGOs, lobbying groups and industry-based organisations that form the mainstream business community;

emphasise the role of NGOs in encouraging and facilitating female entrepreneurship;

promote the exchange of best practices in order to encourage entrepreneurship amongst women;

encourage and make provision for female entrepreneurs to be linked with the appropriate business partners in other fields;

set up advice councils with specific expertise on the challenges and barriers faced by women entrepreneurs as part of the Enterprise Europe network;

run a campaign promoting women's involvement in work by means of setting up their own companies, and at the same time to provide information about the various instruments available to facilitate business start-ups;

collect comparable and comprehensive data on female entrepreneurship in the European Union;

treat women entrepreneurs the same way as employees when it comes to social and other community services, and to improve the social position of female co-entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs in SMEs – through better maternity arrangements, better childcare facilities and care facilities for elderly persons and persons with special needs, as well as better social security provision, and by breaking down gender stereotypes;

improve their cultural and legal position, especially in research, science, engineering, new media, the environment, green and low-carbon technology, agriculture and industrial sectors in urban and rural areas;

examine obstacles to self-employment by Romani women, to create programmes to enable accessible, fast and inexpensive registration for Romani women entrepreneurs and self-employed persons and to establish avenues for accessible credit – including micro-credit – for the financing of undertakings by Romani women;

set up a programme aimed at helping those active in domestic work, care work or other service work, mainly women, who are neither employed nor self-employed, to enter declared self-employment or set up their own enterprise;

offer support to women who are planning to start or to buy a company, or take over a family-owned business, including those who are involved in the liberal professions such as owning a private law or medical practice;

protect the image of women in all forms of communications media, thereby combating the received idea that women are inherently vulnerable and supposedly incapable of competitive and business leadership qualities;

encourage initiatives to help devise and implement positive action and human resources policies at company level to promote gender equality, while also laying greater emphasis on awareness-raising and training measures serving to promote, transfer and incorporate practices that have been successful in organisations and companies;

support programmes designed to enable migrant women to work on a self-employed basis or set up a business by such means as training and mentoring policies and credit access support measures;

encourage balanced representation of women and men on the management boards of companies, particularly where Member States are shareholders;

promote Corporate Social Responsibility among women-run businesses to help ensure that women’s work and working hours are organised on a more flexible basis and to encourage the provision of family-friendly services;

promote vocational training policies and programmes for women, including the development of computer literacy skills;

intensify the support given to vocational training programmes for women in industrial SMEs and support for research and innovation;

encourage the establishment of women’s networks within companies, between companies in the same industrial sector and between industrial sectors;

devise and implement strategies to address discrepancies both within the work environment and in terms of career development for women working in science and technology;

disseminate existing good practice regarding women’s participation in industrial research and cutting-edge industries;

Lastly, Parliament calls on Poland to emphasise female entrepreneurship throughout its presidency, particular in early October 2011 with the European SME Week and calls on the Commission to propose, as soon as possible, an action plan to increase the proportion of women entrepreneurs.

Do women occupy leadership positions and command respect in the workplace? If these questions seem passé in a post-feminist world, the answers are not. CNBC's special report, combined with coverage of the annual Women's Forum for the Economy and Society, opens the conversation.

So when we began planning our special report "Women in Business,"I was eager to learn how women are really doing in the workplace. Clearly, many women are successful, powerful and making money, as our special report shows. But do they occupy leadership positions and command respect—and what impact do they have on the workplace?

If these questions seem passé in our post-feminist world, I learned that the answers are not.

Still others, such as Kelli McGarraugh, President, MD Records, say theystumbled onto their life’s work and consuming passion. “One day, the opportunity presented itself and I decided to take the plunge,” she writes in one of our first-person essays by women who have made it to the top.

I loved learning that women turn out to be amazing hedge fund managers: Research shows that women generally make better money managers, and that funds managed by women significantly outperformed those run by men, with 9 percent returns for women and 5.82 percent for men.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced a commitment from 21 members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation to boost economic growth and productivity by removing barriers to women. Clinton, in a speech, laid out an economic case for APEC members to end such discriminatory practices as taxing women, limiting their ability to own property or to get access to capital, markets, jobs, training and positions of leadership.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced today a commitment from 21 members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation to boost economic growth and productivity by removing barriers to women.

Clinton, in a speech, laid out an economic case for APEC members to end such discriminatory practices as taxing women, limiting their ability to own property or to get access to capital, markets, jobs, training and positions of leadership.

“When everyone has a chance to participate in the economic life of nations, we can all be richer, because more of us would be contributing to the global GDP,” Clinton told an audience at an APEC meeting on women and the economy in San Francisco.

The San Francisco Declaration adopted today commits APEC’s members to pursue a “generation-long journey,” Clinton said. In doing so, they’ll create a fundamental economic shift that leaves member countries more competitive and prosperous, she said.

Clinton’s announcement married two of her strongest interests. She has focused on women and children since early in her professional life, she has sought to leverage the State Department’s power to boost economic growth.

Women's Impact

Clinton cited today a study by consultants McKinsey & Co. that found that approximately one-quarter of U.S. gross domestic product is attributable to productivity gains tied to the rise of women in the U.S. workplace over the last 40 years, from holding 37 percent of all jobs, to 48 percent.

“That works out to more than $3.5 trillion,” Clinton said. “More than the GDP of Germany, and more than half the GDPs of China and Japan,” she said.

And she highlighted a World Bank finding that by eliminating discrimination against female workers and managers, companies “could significantly increase productivity per worker by 25 to 40 percent.”

Getting more women into the economic life of a country has ripple effects that benefit everyone, Clinton said.

Women Save

Her list included greater political stability, fewer military conflicts, more food, more educational opportunity for children and financial stability for more families in the world.

Studies have shown that women spend more of their earned income on food, health care, home improvement and schooling -- reinvesting in ways that lead to more job growth and ensure better educated, healthier citizens, Clinton said.

Women also save more than men, according to research Clinton cited, with the higher savings rate translating into a higher tax base.

APEC has discussed the issue of women’s economic participation before and has made uneven progress toward change, Clinton said. In the U.S. and every APEC economy, women are “still sidelined.”

Only 11 of the CEOs of Fortune Global 500 companies are women, Clinton said.

Clinton has already launched women’s economic projects in Africa. The African Growth Opportunity Act created an initiative to help African women entrepreneurs build export capacity and take advantage of trade opportunities.

And she has launched TechWomen, a technology program in which women from around the world have been mentored by women in the Silicon Valley. At the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Clinton has also advanced an effort to collect data on women’s education, entrepreneurship, and employment.

Speaking to the audience of government officials and private companies from APEC countries, Clinton urged data collection that’s disaggregated by gender so the group has hard statistics to ensure countries are making progress and to detail the impact of women’s participation.

Well, ok, they didn't mention "gender washing." I made up the term to convey the same meaning "green washing" evokes when it's used to describe companies that try to look environmentally responsible -- while doing little or nothing to actually change themselves or improve the environment.

Still, $20 billion is a lot of money. Or is it? According to the New York Times, the $4 billion a year that Walmart will spend sourcing from women-owned U.S. businesses works out to a measly 5% of the company's annual operating expenses.

Join Barbara Bradley Baekgaard, America Ferrera, Rose Mapendo, Cindy McCain, and Lisa Niemi Swayze for the Texas Conference for Women (at the George R. Brown Convention Center). Hosted by Texas First Lady Anita Perry, it will feature keynote panels as well as a small business boot camp for women entrepreneurs. To receive a special NCRW discount, click the pdf below.

Article profiles a $7.3 million deal between a startup and a prominent venture firm. Both the entrepreneur and the venture capitalist are women.

Editorial:

From the article:

Something happened last week in Silicon Valley that was remarkable simply because nothing about it was remarkable. Well, almost nothing.

On Monday, a stealth startup announced it had raised $7.3 million from a prominent venture firm. The deal hinged on the long-term relationship between the founder, a serial entrepreneur, and a venture capitalist who has become a leading figure in e-commerce startups. They had worked together in the past and had become cornerstones of each other's networks over the past decade.

In other words, it's the kind of thing that happens every day in Silicon Valley -- except for one crucial detail: They're both women.

The author argues that The New Yorker‘s profile of Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook provides a glimpse into the evolving state of the workplace in an entrepreneurial and highly connected world — the future of work for the professional class.

Editorial:

From the article:

The New Yorker‘s recent profile of Sheryl Sandberg purports to be a piece about women in technology and doubles as a fine executive profile. But it’s also a glimpse into the evolving state of the workplace in an entrepreneurial and highly connected world — what I think of as the future of work for the professional class.

The New Yorker profile hints at these topics, rather than exploring them directly, but within the nine pages of the article, Sandberg’s decisions about going to Facebook, her leadership style, the life she has created in order to be the COO of a hot startup and the reaction she gets from women and her employees all paint a certain picture. Here’s a good example of how Sandberg views her work, from when she was evaluating moving from Google to Facebook:

“It was like dating,” says Dave Goldberg, Sandberg’s husband and the C.E.O. of the online company SurveyMonkey. Sandberg says they asked each other, “What do you believe? What do you care about? What’s the mission? It was very philosophical.”